The invention relates to telephone voice personal advertisements and telephone dating services.
Traditional xe2x80x9cpersonalsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9clonely heartsxe2x80x9d columns in newspapers involve the publication of an anonymous advertisement, identified with a box number. A reader interested in contacting the advertiser mails a letter which is forwarded by the newspaper to the advertiser. With the advent of voice mail, these xe2x80x9cpersonalsxe2x80x9d columns have become more immediate and effective through what are referred to as xe2x80x9cvoice personalsxe2x80x9d. The advertiser, in addition to a published ad, leaves a voice mail recording which is accessed through a central phone number by entering the advertiser""s box number. The interested party can then listen to the voice message and leave a voice mail message in reply. Generally, such systems charge the users (by credit card or through use of a 1-900 number) to publish an advertisement or record or reply to voice mail messages, but do not charge for xe2x80x9cbrowsingxe2x80x9d the voice mail messages on the system. Consequently, a large percentage of users of the telephone lines required for such a system are using the system free of charge by merely browsing, which causes an uneconomic use of the majority of the lines. Another problem with such systems is that the person who responds to an ad must lose his or her anonymity by leaving a telephone number or address to contact. This increases the reluctance of users to respond to the ads.
A development which overcomes some of these difficulties is a telephone meeting service of the type referred to by the trade-mark xe2x80x9cChatlinexe2x80x9d. According to this system, referred to herein as a xe2x80x9clive connection systemxe2x80x9d, callers record a greeting when entering the system, and then browse through the greetings of other callers presently on the system. If a caller wishes to make a live connection with a party associated with a particular recorded greeting, then a request is made through the system, and if the target party consents to the connection after listening to the callers greeting, a live connection is made. Callers are charged by the minute to credit card or through use of a 1-900 number. This system has the advantage that all parties remain anonymous, and the system can charge customers for all the time they spend on the system. See also Solomon et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,878,239, 4,847,890, 5,058,152 and 5,361,295 which describe similar telephone systems which permit anonymous meeting.
xe2x80x9cLive connection systemsxe2x80x9d require more expensive equipment and monitoring than a basic xe2x80x9cvoice personalsxe2x80x9d system, and so most newspapers utilize only the standard xe2x80x9cvoice personalsxe2x80x9d arrangement. There is therefore a need to increase the revenue of such voice personals systems by encouraging users to switch to a xe2x80x9clive connection systemxe2x80x9d.
The present invention therefore provides a method of interconnecting a xe2x80x9cvoice personal systemxe2x80x9d and a xe2x80x9clive connection systemxe2x80x9d which would alert the voice personals xe2x80x9cbrowserxe2x80x9d of the presence of potential live connections and transfer the browser to the live connection system. The user of the xe2x80x9clive connection systemxe2x80x9d similarly can be switched to the voice personals system to leave a temporary mailbox.